


confirmation bias

by novembersmith



Category: Integrate - Thea Hayworth
Genre: Alien on Alien Action, Gross, Humans Are Aliens Too Y'all, M/M, Partners to Lovers, Partnership, Possessive Behavior, Scent Marking, Space Detectives, Tentacle Sex, Water Sex, Weird Fuzzy Aliens Like What Even, Xeno, Xenophilia, Yuleporn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 13:52:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13125069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novembersmith/pseuds/novembersmith
Summary: So his new partner was surprisingly not completely un-attractive, for a human. Gavin Hayes had impressive aptitude scores, and a friendly smile, and eyes sharp as winter currents, taking in the station and remembering names and details with an ease that belied his causal charm. All things that transcended species boundaries and general integumentary inadequacies.It didn’t mean Sezin found himsexy.





	confirmation bias

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tanyart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanyart/gifts).



> Holy shit, I don't even know what happened here, but I hope you enjoy! Here is a lot of Sezin coming to grips with being attracted to a fuzzy ape-man. And then coming to _grips_ with it, ayyy.
> 
> Also, head's up: [A VERY IMPORTANT AND INSPIRING PIECE OF ART OF SEZIN AND GAVIN](http://llyjii.tumblr.com/image/166060840348). I kept tabbing back to this while writing. Dang that alien is hot.
> 
> Ten BILLION thanks to my magnificent betas/cheerleaders, cthonical, regonym, and helicase, without whom I would have given up early on and would have been a rambling mess. And also to the author of the [original work](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/531622), who made my year tbh.

Sezin knew exactly what Hrran was going to say, and he didn’t want to hear it. He just stared at Detective Hayes, who had stopped on his way out, leaning over the front desk and chatting with Llissa at reception, all smiles and easy hand gestures. Sezin watched and hoped against hope that his nest-sib would go the fuck away and let him process the strangeness of the day in peace.

“Hey, cuz,” Hrran said instead, shit-eating smirk showing every point of every tooth. “Weird how some hirsa are into those fuzzy bipeds, right? What even makes them sexy? You ever figure that out, Zin? Huh?”

“Shut up,” Sezin said calmly. So his new partner was surprisingly not completely un-attractive, for a human. Gavin Hayes had impressive aptitude scores, and a friendly smile, and eyes sharp as winter currents, taking in the station and remembering names and details with an ease that belied his causal charm. All things that transcended species boundaries, and general integumentary inadequacies.

It didn’t mean Sezin found him _sexy_.

“I know literally nothing about hirsa except not to offer you my hand right now,” Hayes had admitted cheerfully, flat teeth white in a grin. He had shrugged his shoulder in a way that looked startlingly indecent, and Sezin caught his breath slightly despite himself. “But hey, at least I don’t have any bad habits to unlearn? And I promise to learn the good ones quick.”

Their first assignment wasn’t actually an assignment – that would come later. For now, Lieutenants Chung and Rosser just wanted them to spend a few days going through old case files together in their new office, getting used to each other. So they did, Hayes asking questions and Sezin answering. Towards the end of the day, with the light turning murky outside, Hayes asked to be taught a few hirsa words, and then spent several minutes struggling, patiently determined, brows furrowed, failing miserably. Amused, Sezin finally opened his mouth and showed him his trifurcated tongue.

“You’re a damn tease,” Hayes laughed, throwing his head back. “No wonder I couldn’t manage those vowels!”

“You were close,” Sezin admitted. “For a human.”

“A human with a boring tongue,” Hayes said, shaking his head and grinning. His own tongue, when he stuck it out, was very pink, and broad, and soft-looking. “I suppose that answers why human’s the standard language here. I’d wondered.”

“Yes,” Sezin said faintly, and tore his gaze from Hayes’s mouth. “Well. I think we’re done for the day, at any rate.”

“Sure,” Hayes said agreeably, and yawned, showing that pink tongue again in a flash of color between white teeth. Not - as alarming and odd as Sezin usually though human mouths were, actually. Not that he normally thought about them at all, in the course of his day to day life, outside the annoyance of having to constantly speak the single-tongued human standard.

After that interlude, friendly and playful, Sezin had worried a bit that Hayes would want to do something social after work, when the day had left Sezin feeling uncomfortably overstimulated for no good reason. He’d worked with humans before, obviously, though not one on one, not in such close quarters. Sure, this particular human was friendly and respectful, but still. Sezin felt tired and on edge; he wanted to go home, but not enough to risk offense by refusing if he was asked.

But in the space where the invitation for after-work socializing should have come, Hayes just tilted his head, considering his new partner, and then smiled again.

“Maybe drinks this weekend?” he said, leaning back in his chair and ruffling his sea-dark hair with his hands until it stood up on end. “I’m a bit bushed tonight, honestly. New planet, new time zones, new gravity.”

“New species,” Sezin added, unsure why he felt slightly disappointed by the reprieve, then unable to help himself, asked, “…bushed?”

“Oh! Tired!” Hayes explained, face doing something remarkably elastic that seemed to convey both amusement at himself and rueful apology. “Hah, sorry, just ask whenever I say something weird. I’d promise to try to keep all the slang out of my conversation, but honestly there’s no chance. I’m like at least 80 percent obscure Earth pop culture references.”

“I don’t mind,” Sezin said. “And I didn’t realize you’d arrived planetside so recently. Are you—settling in well? Finding it suitable?” What was he even saying? He felt tongues-tied now, his hold on the human language slipping and slurring a little. He felt flustered and stupid with it. Why was he even starting another conversation when he just wanted to go home?

“Oh yeah, Koios is a dream compared to some of the places I’ve worked. No muggings at the shuttleport, no slouse infestations in the apartment, it’s great.” Hayes grinned at him again.

“Good,” Sezin said, managing to keep himself from asking about the muggings, or slouces, or where Hayes had wound up living, or—

“Anyway, I guess I should head out before I start rambling at you again. But I’m really looking forward to working with you, Sezin. See you tomorrow!”

As Hayes swung his coat on from the back of his chair, Sezin didn’t move away, and the fabric just brushed against the skin of his bare arm. He let it happen without conscious decision, and watched Hayes leave, smelling of Scald, and only really realized what he’d done he got up to head home himself, and Hrran ambushed him on the way out of reception, cooing smugly.

“I just can’t believe my prudish baby cousin has a crush, after all these years,” Hrran sing-songed, slinging an arm around Sezin’s shoulders and sighing exaggeratedly. Sezin shrugged him off and realized in grim despair there was nothing he could do to stop this particular piece of gossip from spreading through the Scald of the force. He’d been single too long, and all of them were incurably nosy the way only clansibs who made a career out of detective work could be. “And on a _mammal_! After all your grumbling about how _weird_ and _furry_ they were!”

“It wasn’t on purpose,” Sezin said, bristling. “And we’re the same age, you prick!”

“Uh huh. Sure, whatever you say. But he’s cute, right?” Hrran said, ignoring him and waggling his cephalic helms like a teenager instead of a hardened homicide detective. “He’s got Scald colors, too, it’s practically destiny.”

“Be less ridiculous,” Sezin requested hopelessly, and after several attempts, managed to lose his nest-sib in the parking structure and escape to the privacy of his vehicle.

“I do _not_ have a crush,” he informed his steering wheel, then sternly instructed himself to _also_ be less ridiculous, and headed home.

He had no problem with humans, obviously, but he didn’t find them especially attractive either. It was a little surprising that despite all that he didn’t find Gavin Hayes especially _un_ attractive, but that was beside the point. He barely knew the man.

***

Three months later, Gavin Hayes poked his head in the office, looking unusually hesitant, and continued his oblivious campaign to make Sezin go absolutely insane. “Morning, Sezin. I got you – well, uh, the barista said hirsa like this stuff?” He gestured at Sezin with a cup. “I was getting coffee and I thought I’d pick something up for you too, since I was already running late. Sorry about that, by the way.”

“You’re not late, I’m just early,” Sezin smirked at him, tamping down on an emotion he had no desire to examine when Hayes brushed past him, smelling freshly showered and laundered and nearly scent-neutral.

He had no problem with human hygiene. It was commendable, that Hayes had taken the opportunity to wash off several days worth of working in close proximity together. And he didn’t miss the salt-musk scent of Hayes’s sweat, either, because that would be inappropriate and weird.

“I will beat you here one day,” Hayes vowed, leaning his hip against Sezin’s side of the desk and mock-scowling down at him – it was in the eyes that you could see the scowl was playful, Sezin had realized weeks before. Human eyes were ridiculous, all subtle dilation of pupil and widening or narrowing of lashes. Hayes’s eyes were especially ridiculous and expressive, for a human. “Anyway, this tea – I am not entirely sure they weren’t fucking with me, but here you go.”

Sezin took the cup carefully, unsure what his partner could possibly be talking about until he pried the sealed lid off.

“Oh,” he said, blinking his nictating membranes across his much less expressive, flatter eyes. “No, this is – good. Thank you.” He’d trained himself to the point where he almost enjoyed coffee, if not the station’s particular version of the beverage. But when given a choice, he’d always take muskeg tea - hard to get on Koios colony, unfortunately. He had no idea how Hayes had found some. He’d even taken the time and care to get an insulated cup, and the tea was still hot enough that slow swampy bubbles were bursting on the surface.

“Okay, in the interests of cross-cultural communication, I have to tell you I am boggled, my friend,” Hayes said, leaning away from the cup with his nose wrinkled. “That smells like something died in a cup, and then came back to life. And then died again.”

“As though your puny human nose can smell anything,” Sezin murmured, and felt his mouth twitch into a smile despite himself when Hayes clutched his chest, miming a shot to the heart. “It’s better than coffee, at any rate.”

“Um, how dare you. Coffee is the nectar of the gods,” Hayes said, somewhat nonsensically, as Sezin was under the impression he followed no particular religion. “And that stuff is – infernal, I am pretty sure. Definitely not what I’d call tea; I’m not sure I’d even call it liquid.”

He suddenly grimaced a little – conveying, Sezin knew, that he was abruptly worried he had ‘put his foot in his mouth’ and said something culturally insensitive without thinking. Sezin smiled and did his version of the human eyeroll, tilting his head up to show he wasn’t offended, and was pleased when Hayes relaxed and sipped at his own cup, settling into the chair on his side of the desk.

“Glad you like it, anyway,” he said. “I really was worried someone was punking me. Um, pulling a prank on me, you know. A joke.”

“Mm,” Sezin said. Hayes wasn’t usually quite this chatty first thing, not being a morning person. Sezin suspected he was putting off, for as long as possible, diving back into the mess of files on their desks. Sezin sympathized. He’d been putting it off himself. They’d been forced to leave the office last night by Rosser and Chung, and the break in the miserable search had probably been for the best after days without sleep, but it made it all the harder to force himself back into it again now. He hated missing children cases. This one had so little evidence, and had gone on so long, it seemed like. The frustration of staring at the same files was gnawing at them both, abyssal, like bone-boring worms.

Just another minute, and he’d start work again. Just, it was hard to ignore how still Hayes looked so tired, in that soft human way where his skin had started taking on twilight tones, dusky hollows beneath sunset red-rimmed eyes.

“You know, you should try it, you might like it.” Sezin offered his cup out innocently, and watched Hayes splutter and work his way up to taking it – amusing in and of itself. Then he found himself sincerely unable to stop laughing at the incredible expression that crossed Hayes’s face when he took a sip.

“So you can laugh, and this is what it takes,” Hayes said, muffled, still scrubbing his single tongue with a napkin. “I guess it was worth it. Oh my god, the taste doesn’t go away. Help.”

Sezin took another sip of the tea, savoring it and not thinking about anything in particular, just smirking at his partner over the rim.

“But I will admit I am extremely awake now,” Hayes added, tossing the napkin in the trash, and then doing a full-body shake that was incredibly – suggestive. Or would have been, on a hirsa – the sort of move that would have left all their tentacles uncoiled and bare. He suspected Hayes was playing the whole thing up for his benefit, being silly to cheer him up, not having the slightest clue what effect he’d actually had.

Sezin should really tell him what Hayes looked like when he moved like that one day. He really should. Instead, he stared into his cup again. Focus. He needed to stop being distracted and focus. It was time to get started, and think about what could be happening, right now, to the children. Somewhere out in their city, and time was running out, and he needed to _focus_ —

He started when the chair shifted beneath him – Hayes had put out a foot and nudged it. His eyes were big and dark with emotions Sezin still couldn’t parse, not yet. Human eyes were like weather, complex and changeable. “Hey. Sezin, it’s okay, you know, if you need a break. We can get another team in on this.”

“This is our case,” Sezin said, frowning, and unhunched himself from where he had been curled around the warmth of the cup. “I’m fine. I’m – ready.”

“Okay,” Hayes agreed, not pushing it, but he kept his foot propped up on the chair, not touching exactly, but close enough a proximity that it could almost be felt. His trousers had ridden up slightly at the ankle, showing a flash of pale skin.

Sezin flipped back open the file of missing human and hirsa children. At least none of them were Scald; then he really would have had to been pulled off the case. Even so, there was a dark, primal urge to go hunting for the lost children ceaselessly in the streets, pacing and looking for a scent trail he knew was long-vanished.

Logically, he knew that. Someplace deeper, he really didn’t. Ignoring it felt more and more difficult; precisely why colony-wide search parties had not been started and the disappearances not widely broadcast to the public. But Sezin was supposed to be a professional; he was supposed to be better than panicked instinct alone.

“Fuck,” Hayes was saying across from him, bringing Sezin back to the present, to this room. “You know, I was thinking all last night and I woke up this morning and I know there’s something I’m _so_ close to getting. It’s nearly there, on the tip of my tongue, you know? I’ve almost fucking got it, something someone said on Thursday. But there were so many interviews, I can’t think what clicked.”

Sezin hummed thoughtfully in response, and pulled up the 3D files of interviewee faces, and started pushing them across the desk one by one; Hayes had a knack for visuals in a way he didn’t. He thought about teasing Hayes about not sleeping as they’d been commanded, but then, he hadn’t slept either.

He breathed in again, the smell of clean human and steeped tea, and took another sip. It helped, more than it should have, and he flicked a look at Hayes, who had caught the files absently in one hand and started cross-referencing them with the other. He was going over a hard-copy file from the hospitals and making notes with a pen – archaic, and strangely endearing. He said it helped him think, doing something with his hands, even if the computer was more efficient.

“Hayes,” he said, and raised the cup of tea when Hayes looked up, pen in his mouth. “Thanks. Really. For this.”

“You can call me Gavin, you know,” he mumbled back, his tired, solemn eyes crinkling into something warm and fond. He took the pen out of his mouth and smiled properly at him. “And you’re welcome. Glad you like your terrifying drink.”

“Gavin,” Sezin said, testing out the syllables, his tongues coming slightly undone at the tip and softening the edges of the name accidentally. Gavin smiled and sent a picture spinning back towards him across the desk, a pretty young hirsa’s ID photo.

“I brought the tea, now it’s your turn. I can’t remember why her clan name sounds odd to me. Is it a less common one?”

They cracked the case that afternoon; the nurse who had given vaccinations at the school earlier that spring, who had access to high quality scent-neutralizers, who had only recently moved to Koios, her other clansibs not arrived yet. News of a shuttle crash on her homeworld had sent her into a state of bereavement, even after she’d later learned her cousins and nephews had survived it alive and well. A motive at last.

She’d taken human toddlers instead of hirsa, the nurse explained when they knocked on her door, cuddling one tawny-haired girl closer to her, because surely human parents wouldn’t mind as much? She’d just needed someone to keep safe. And then apparently the hirsa nest-sibs of those missing human children had heroically, according to the hirsa children in question, gone in pursuit of their lost classmates before the scent trail could go cold. And well, once they’d turned up, the nurse thought she might as well keep them too?

The hirsa children were pleased with themselves for succeeding in finding their humans, but distraught from being constantly dosed with the scent-neutralizers. The human parents were furious and couldn’t quite comprehend the cultural implications of hirsa bereavement and nesting instincts. And all of the children refused to be parted from one another or their new family member, forcing all them to cohabitate, at least temporarily, as ‘one big happy family.’

Gavin’s words, not Sezin’s. He preferred the term ‘clusterfuck.’

“Come on, it’s a happy ending!” Gavin laughed later, after they’d handed all families involved off to the team of soon-to-be extremely frazzled counselors. “Everyone will come out of this with a better understanding of our respective alien cultures! And at least our work here is done.” His slightly manic, over-caffeinated smile slipped for a moment. “Except for the paperwork,” he said, voice as dark as the coffee he’d been mainlining the last eight days.

But they left said paperwork as a task for their future, better-rested selves, and stumbled out of the station towards the car park. Before they got to Sezin’s vehicle, though, he wanted to say something. He couldn’t let it lie.

“I was distracted on this one,” he said, catching Gavin’s arm. “I want to apologize.” As Gavin froze, eyes going wide, he realized he’d never initiated physical contact before. This was the first time. Gavin was warm, even with the layers of cloth between them.

“We don’t bond that easily, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Sezin said, letting go. He felt himself mantling his helm a little, embarrassed, and tried to settle himself.

“No, I know!” Gavin said, and hesitantly nudged him with an elbow, his face unusually pink; humans changed colors much more often than Sezin been led to believe. He didn’t look unhappy or uncomfortable, though, so Sezin elected not to mention it. “I just, uh. Was surprised. Not worried. And don’t apologize, Christ. That’s why they put us together, right? Complementary skill sets. We’re a team.”

He smiled again, and then waggled the car keys that he’d somehow finagled unnoticed from Sezin’s coat pocket with his clever human hands, more nimble and maneuverable than even filed hirsa talons. “Since I cracked the case, I get to drive, right?”

“In your dreams, Hayes,” Sezin said, feeling lighter than he had in a week, and if their fingers brushed when he took the keys back – well. It wasn’t too much of a deal, was it? They were partners, and he was just tired and clumsy and, and comfortable, with Gavin’s company. That was all.

“Gavin, it’s Gavin, not Hayes,” Gavin insisted.

“In your dreams, Gavin,” he said dryly, and Gavin smiled like a wave crashing, all bright teeth cresting in the dark night and then tumbling over top of him.

That night, trying to fall asleep, he thought again about that smile, about the warmth of Gavin’s fingers against his. Just a snatch of a second of contact. Sezin had always thought warm-blooded skin would feel a little revolting, honestly – like someone who was ill.

It hadn’t felt like that. At all. And tomorrow every single Scald in the station was going to give him so much shit about his scent on that warm human skin, and Sezin really wished they were going to be wrong about what it meant. But he was starting to think they probably weren’t.

“Oh no,” he said into the darkness, and put his hands over his face and tried to ignore how he couldn’t stop his tentacles from writhing beneath his sheets.

***

He may have come to grips with the fact that his partner was, in fact, attractive, for a human. But Sezin didn’t have to like it, or do anything about it. He found plenty of hirsa attractive and he didn’t mark any of them, did he? No. He did not.

“That’s because you’re too picky, Zin,” Zissa teased him. It was one of their rare nights off. Even rarer, Gavin had apparently had made plans elsewhere, which Sezin had refused to ask him about because he didn’t care, at all, what Gavin might be doing without him. Anyway. They had all decided to go to the bar and get drunk, because that was what cops did on their days off. Especially when they were in love, according to Hrran, which was completely irrelevant and unnecessary to bring up. Sezin had only admitted to finding Gavin attractive, not to loving him, dammit.

Sezin glared at Zissa and tossed back another shot before pillowing his head on his arms. “I’m not picky, I just don’t like casual sex,” he said sulkily, feeling extremely sorry for himself, because of course he’d tried picking up lovers in his youth, but it had always been _frustrating_ and unsatisfying and he just wanted something he could keep, not a tease at the real thing. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, it just means you’re sexually frustrated as fuck all the time,” Hrran said over Zissa’s shoulder, smiling like the shit he was and pressing a kiss to Zissa’s neck. Sezin had no idea what she saw in him. “And you’re totally cockblocking that nice human boy. No hirsa is going to go within a block of him with your scent that strong on him, and you know it.”

That sounded fine. What was not fine about that?

“He only dates humans anyway,” Sezin sniffed, and waved a hand at the bartender for another drink. “He probably doesn’t even like, um. Tentacles. Which is fine.”

“Everyone likes tentacles,” Hrran said, sounding shocked and appalled. “They just might not know it yet. Really, it’s your duty as an ambassador for the species – ”

“Please stop,” Sezin said grimly, and absolutely did not think about what it would be like to be Gavin’s first - first hirsa, anyway, and then he got distracted briefly by dark thoughts of that one human EMT that Gavin had dated a few months ago. Thankfully not long - the scent of him had been aggravating even second-hand. Just because of the cologne. He wasn’t jealous, his nose was just sensitive. Obviously.

“Even if I did want… I don’t even know how humans - anything. I just know they don’t have tentacles.”

“Oh my sweet, innocent, baby cousin – ”

“We are the _same age_ , Hrran!”

“ – that is what the undernet is for. Go forth, young hirsa, and explore. I give you my blessing.”

“Zissa, please take him away from me.”

“Seriously, you are pathetic,” Zissa said kindly, patting Sezin’s shoulder. “He obviously adores you - just ask him out. He’ll probably say yes.”

Terrifying. “That seems improbable,” he said, annoyed at how wistfully it came out.

“He is nice to everyone, I admit, but he is especially nice to you, Zin,” Hrran said, serious for once. “What have you got to lose? Plus, he doesn’t realize you’re leading him on _now_ , but he’s going to figure it out sooner or later. I’m honestly a little concerned for his deductive skills that he hasn’t yet.”

“Gavin is an excellent deductive skill,” Sezin said, outraged, aware that hadn’t come out quite right, but sure the gist had gotten across, which was what mattered. “I am just sneaky.”

“Oh my maelstroms,” Zissa said, and got out her comm. “One, you’re not, and two, can you say that again while I’m recording, because it was adorable.”

“I forgot he turns into a total teenager when he’s drinking, I love it,” Hrran said, because he was a monster. “Ha, you’re going to feel horrible tomorrow.”

“Why are you both like this?” Sezin asked, propping himself up on one arm and squinting at the two of them darkly.

“Because we love you and we’re helping you have exciting revelations about your sexuality,” Zissa said, stealing his drink. Sezin had been completely abandoned and had no allies left in the world. Well. He supposed he could message Gavin on his comm and ask for backup, but that seemed deeply counterproductive. “I think step one is for you to figure out if you like the human dick. And don’t look at me like that. If you can’t say it, you can’t fuck it, that is the rule. Then you can revisit this argument about telling him. But hey! Maybe it won’t be your thing. Not everyone likes them warm and fuzzy.”

Sezin was starting to think he was not the only drunken hirsa at this bar, mostly because having delivered her horrible message, Zissa was now blowing green bubbles in his drink with her tongues and it was gross. But that was not the most important gross thing going on.

“Ugh, fuzzy,” Sezin grumbled. “Doesn’t it get - sticky?” Why did his partner, who was charming and witty and understood Sezin like he’d spent years at his side, why did he have to be _fuzzy_?

“Bro, all sex is sticky. If you’re not sticky, you’re doing it wrong,” Hrran said, and stole his comm, because he was a traitor to the clan and Sezin hated him. “I’m find you some human porn, no, don’t thank me now. Thank me later, at your human wedding. I am told flowers are involved, and cake, and speeches. I want to give the speeches.”

“You will never give the speeches,” Sezin hissed, because that was, at least, one thing he was certain of.

He woke the next morning with a number of terrible emails about his new subscription to Xenofap, the thumbnails of which were frankly too horrible to look at when hungover, let alone this early in the morning.

There was also a message from Gavin. It was primarily composed of emojis, and seemed to imply Gavin deeply regretted being Bowman’s plus one to the funerary association’s bowling tournament. He was almost entirely completely positive that the relationship between Bowman and Gavin was platonic. Not that he cared.

...he did hope Gavin showered thoroughly before coming back to work, though.

Another message came in while he was still squinting at the phone. _do you want to meet at cafe to be grumpy and hungover together check y/n_

After deciphering that, he asked, with deep suspicion and mounting concern, how the fuck Gavin knew he was hungover.

_heard u guys closed the bar down for scaldsibs’ night out. proud of u. ur nasty tea is on me, buddy._

Horrible. He needed a new clan. And maybe a new partner. And definitely a new brain, because there was nothing sexy about the idea of licking muskeg tea off Gavin’s fuzzy chest. _Nothing_.

And yet here he was, lungs throbbing, head light, tentacles leaking.

 _Give me 30min_ , he texted back finally, and stumbled to the bath to not think about anything in particular at all.

***

It had seemed like a reasonable division of labor at the time. Sezin was faster, stronger, and more durable, so he would go for the man with the actual explosives. Gavin, with his obnoxiously clever hands – fingers at least as dexterous as a tentacle, and far more maneuverable in public – would get the detonator from the other member of the ‘Humans Only’ organization, in case they had other bombs already in place.

Generally low key, if constantly being arrested and fined for hate speech, Humans Only had recently leveled up to destroying hirsa mailboxes and vehicles, and as such Gavin and Sezin’s team had been deployed to find the ringleaders. It should have been a simple case, a simple apprehension.

And yet, somehow, when Sezin turned around after cuffing his own suspect, Gavin was on the ground on his knees, white teeth gritted in a grimace visible from a block away, and the other man was sprinting in the opposite direction. Gavin yelled, “Go, go, I’ve got it!” smirking and holding the detonator up in his right hand, waggling it triumphantly. His other hand was leaking a bright, steady stream of red onto the pavement. Sezin registered the red at the same time the scent of human blood hit him – and thought, distantly, that it was really so odd that such a drab species bled such a brilliant scarlet.

Then he started running.

“Whoops,” said Gavin hoarsely a few minutes later, and leaned his head against Sezin’s shoulder. Always pale, he now looked ice-white. Shock, humans experienced shock after a traumatic injury, Sezin remembered now. “Uh, sorry,” he continued, smiling up at Sezin. “Whoops means, I may have – made a slight miscalculation on that take-down. Surprise knife and all. Very low-tech, but effective. I mean, I guess this is a pretty low-tech group, pipe bombs are like, at least a millennia out of style, right? …Sezin, stop making that face. It’s really just a flesh wound. I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding everywhere,” Sezin pointed out frostily.

“But I got the detonator while he was busy stabbing me,” Gavin smirked weakly, pointing to it with his chin. He must have set it down at some point while Sezin, vision tunneled with rage, had been bearing down on his target. Now Gavin’s hands were clamped together, leaking a steady stream of crimson onto the street. “Worth it, right? Could be worse. That last forum post was a nasty one, didn’t seem right to take chances there were more bombs. Could have been anywhere. Someone could have gotten hurt.”

“You were _stabbed_ ,” Sezin said, aware his voice was deepening into a rumbling growl that, he was told, freaked most humans out.

“Just in the hand!” Gavin protested, like he wasn’t shaking. Shaking and sweating, black hair straggling damply over his forehead like seaweed. Humans had about as many nerve endings in their hands as hirsa did in their dorsal tentacles, so probably Sezin should be less furious and more sympathetic, but he was having a hard time reining in his emotions.

“So I assume you got Marle, then?” Gavin asked faintly, eyelids drooping as he hunched over his hands.

“He stabbed my partner, of course I fucking got Marle,” Sezin seethed. “He’s over by the bank.”

“Uh,” Gavin said, eyes blinking open, then going wide as he peeked around Sezin’s shoulder. “Sezin. Is he dead?”

“I don’t know,” Sezin said indifferently, staying where he was crouched over his partner. “He’s not moving anymore. That’s what I know.” He probably should care slightly more if the man was dead or not, but he couldn’t summon anything more than satisfaction at the idea.

“Sezin.”

“The ambulance is on the way. When they get here, maybe the driver can go check on him.”

“Jeez, Zin,” Gavin laughed hoarsely. “You almost seem worried. I’m really okay. Um. Fuck, how far off’s the ambulance?”

“Few minutes. What do you need?”

Gavin didn’t say anything for a moment, and Sezin snarled, “What do you need?”

“I can wait, I just - it’s kind of a lot of blood and I can’t get good pressure on it.” He said it apologetically, like he was supposed to be fine after his partner let him get stabbed.

“Give me your hand,” Sezin commanded, and Gavin looked at him unhappily. “I don’t give a damn about propriety, _give me your hand_.”

Gavin gave him his hand. He’d gone from shell-pale to a light green color that Sezin had never seen before on a human being. The cut was jagged over the palm, deep there and shallowing as it dragged down, but more worryingly, it had nicked something at the wrist, where blood pulsed out in spurts. It was impossibly hot over Sezin’s fingers when he wrapped them around the wound carefully.

“Too tight?” he asked when Gavin hissed out a long breath between his teeth.

“No, ‘s fine. Little tighter would be good, actually.” He was silent for a moment, panting, then slurred, head down and eyes obscured. “Sorry for leaking on you, Sez.”

“Don’t be sorry for leaking on me,” Sezin said, feeling horrifically tender, nauseous with it. “Be sorry for getting _fucking stabbed_ , you _moron_.”

“Hey,” Gavin said feelingly. “Not sorry for that. Had to.” Had to because Sezin hadn’t been fast enough, hadn’t realized what was happening until it was already too late.

“Don’t do that again,” Sezin whispered back, hearing finally at last the ambulance sirens approaching from above, not sure if he was talking to Gavin or himself.

The first thing the ambulance crew did was clean the wound with disinfectants, which happened to also be scent neutralizers, and it made Sezin feel _fucking crazy_.

He didn’t let it show, though, because Gavin wasn’t his, not like that, and Sezin was a professional, and the EMTs were not the enemy, weren’t trying to take anything that belonged to him. Nothing here belonged to him, or needed protected. Gavin was joking with them, cheeks a little less green and his breathing a little more easy, so that helped. Slightly.

“Is your mate okay?” one of them asked Gavin softly, flicking a Whitesands-gold glance at Sezin. “He’s holding it together well. Most would be half to ripping my throat out right now for touching you. If we’d known, we would have sent a Scald team out, I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, no, he’s my partner. I mean, at work,” Gavin said, laughing weakly, waving his other, bloodied hand dismissively. “We’re not bonded. He’s just upset I got stabbed on his watch.”

“...uh huh,” the EMT said, and turned to give Sezin the most withering glare he’d ever received in his life. It was totally uncalled for, because Sezin hadn’t marked Gavin at all. Not a single fucking tentacle. He didn’t like humans like that, for one thing, not even this human, his human. Sezin’s scent was just all over him because they worked together, and okay, yes, he couldn’t stand Gavin’s pain, or his distance, or anyone else touching him, but that was a work thing. A friend thing. It wasn’t like Sezin wanted to spend the rest of his life watching Gavin smile, or tasting that smile, or providing for him, or - 

The EMT’s glare had softened into something more pitying.

Sezin stared at her, then back at Gavin, and then thought, fuck.

He might need to reassess some things.

***

After he’d seen Gavin home, and after Gavin had woozily registered the blood all over Sezin’s clothes in absolute horror and then ruined Sezin’s life all over again by druggedly insisting Sezin borrow one of his shirts, Sezin grimly sat down at his home computer and pulled up his personal mail.

Mammals. Penises. He could do this.

Gavin’s scent was all around him, which probably helped, a bit, as he stared wide-eyed at the diagrams on the internet. The familiar detergent on the shirt, the lingering smell of Gavin’s hands, skin, made it seem a little less like an alien set of genitals, and a little more like _Gavin_. But there was the scent of blood, too, and all the medical terms he hadn’t the slightest clue how to understand, like frenulum and prostate, and Sezin could feel his lungs bubbling up in a panic.

“This isn’t sexy,” he shouted into his comm a few minutes later. “What do I _do_?”

“Oh Sesira’s helm, you cannot just - of course medical diagrams aren’t hot, what is wrong with you?” A pause while Hrran gathered his thoughts. “Not that some people don’t find that hot, but you’re the most vanilla romantic this sector has ever seen, so of course you don’t. Also,” he said, sounding actually indignant, “I cannot believe you haven’t even tried to watch the porn I got you, it was very carefully curated to suit your plebian tastes!”

“I love him and he got stabbed today and it was my fault, and I have no idea what to do,” Sezin said, strangled.

“Oh, Zin. It wasn’t—look. Okay. Okay, here’s what you need to do: get drunk.”

“I might actually hate you right now,” Sezin returned, feeling frankly murderous.

“I’m serious, you’re thinking too hard about it. Get drunk, watch a few humans get off, and imagine doing that for your human. Take it from there. No need to thank me.”

It seemed honestly asinine, but the first glass of Nökkenvann did calm his racing hearts, enough that he thought he might do better after a shower to wash the worst of the blood and grime off himself.

He settled at the computer in a towel, taking deep breaths in between each sip. While he’d been in the shower, Hrran and Zissa and, fuck his life, Virss and Kurz too had sent a group email of porn recommendations. He supposed he was lucky Rosser wasn’t in on it.

_ What are clansibs for? _

_ Go get your mammal!! _

_ He’s hot cuz, make a move before I do _

_I hate you all and I want a new clan_ , he sent back, and then clicked the top link.

The human crawling onto the bed in front of the camera was not nearly as aesthetically attractive as Gavin, in Sezin’s objective opinion, though he supposed he could see the appeal of the curve to his spine, rounding in a parabola of gluteus muscle. Humans did have a lot of gentle curving to their forms that his species just didn’t, and it wasn’t aesthetically unpleasing. Just odd. But Sezin had noticed Gavin’s ass before, attention caught by the roundness of it. It seemed soft for a muscle, somehow, and he was strangely gratified when the hirsa on screen grabbed a handful of human ass and it dimpled beneath the filed talons.

The human made a pleased noise and maybe, just potentially, slightly possibly, his cousin had a point, because the idea of Gavin making a pleased noise, because of _him_ , had him squirming a little in his seat.

He took another swallow of pearled liquor and let it roll around in his mouth while the hirsa pushed the human down onto the bed. The human spread like an alien flower under the hirsa’s hand, and it was strange not to see any tentacles, to see the skin flushing and dark pink in circles at the chest - nipples, he remembered. Vestigial in males, which didn’t seem sexy at all, but it somehow was, at least when the hirsa bit at one, leaving a semi-circle of teeth marks around it and the human - he thought only tentacles could writhe that way, but the human’s whole body shimmied upwards into the hirsa’s mouth, and then he made a _sound_.

“Oh,” Sezin said faintly into the empty apartment, and poured a new cup.

“Look at the camera,” the hirsa rumbled, tentacles a luscious violet, and when she rubbed one against the human’s mouth, it was – okay, fuck. That was definitely hot. He was officially letting himself drop dorsal arms, to a human and hirsa couple having sex. He felt oddly accomplished.

“So good,” the hirsa purred as the human licked at her with his flat, pink tongue. “Want to show them you’re mine?

And at first it had felt strange, _wrong_ , watching these strangers, but they wanted to be watched, didn’t they? Though in that case, Sezin thought critically, they could have chosen a better camera for it. Maybe that had been the hirsa’s choice, though - maybe she hadn’t wanted to give a perfect glimpse of her human to anyone else. Just a tease, to show off her mate.

“Oh, I don’t know, are you up to it?” the human asked, smirking up at her and wrapping a leg around her waist.

“Youuuu,” the hirsa laughed, the sound happy, and shimmied herself, all purples and reds, and - 

And somehow the human didn’t seem nearly as overwhelmed, purely on a limb ratio, as Sezin had assumed a human in bed with a hirsa would be. The hirsa was shuddering as the human sucked hard on one of her tentacles, eyes locked on hers. Her other tentacles were a wild, coiling thrash around her back, directionless, more like a ventral mass than a dorsal one, and Sezin leaned forward, feeling his own sets furling and unfurling in response.

But he’d have better control than she did, he was positive, even with Gavin’s warm mouth around the tip of his tendrils.

Probably.

Sezin abandoned the glass and started drinking straight from the bottle, shuddering a little as he let one of his lower dorsal tentacles wrap loosely around his ventral ones, the cool slickness of them leaking everywhere. He felt filthy with it, and dazed, and hungry.

The hirsa had a secondary orgasm, and another, the human moaning around her two primary dorsals now, mouth fucked full, and Sezin came with a sudden sharp shock, his own dorsal pulsing, when he thought of Gavin’s pink mouth stretched wide for him.

Fuck, oh fuck, oh no. Because yes, now he knew he could absolutely have sex with a human, but _what if Gavin didn’t want to have sex with him_. Why hadn’t he thought of that before he opened this stupid video? What was he doing?

But the film was still going. “Let me fuck you, please, please,” the hirsa said raggedly, pulling the human’s mouth to hers and begging into it.

“Fuck yes,” the human said, and then said, “Have me,” spreading his legs wide, and Sezin couldn’t even imagine what he’d do, if Gavin said that to him. Melt, maybe. Die. On screen the hirsa lowered her pelvis to her human’s, and he couldn’t really see anything, but the fucking _sounds_ … The audio on the frankly inadequate camera crackled, and then somehow the human had flipped the hirsa onto her side, his bare, smooth back filling the screen, and then one of them _kicked the camera off the bed and it all went to black._

Sezin stared at the screen in disbelief, everything on his body throbbing, and then furiously got himself off. He seethed through the afterglow and when he felt capable of movement again, replied to the email thread with a single line, viciously typed letter by letter:

_ I’M DISOWNING EVERYONE ON THIS PLANET _

_ lol that first vid is such a cockblock right. _

_ Hot though _

_I AM NOT JOKING_ , he typed with angry precision, and stomped dizzily to his grotto with the remainder of his bottle.

He’d watch the rest of the links later, though. Because, he seethed, sinking beneath the water, he still hadn’t actually gotten a good look at a penis.

Sesira damn them all.

***

The next morning, hungover yet again and reeling with it - love was obviously unhealthy, no matter what all the romantics said - he carefully and with great dignity assembled his work outfit. Pressed white shirt, black slacks, holster, jacket, heeled boots (the worst of the lot), and by the time he’d knotted his tie he had the throbbing gill-ache under control.

He eyed the light levels of the dawn sky critically and judged he could make it to the café with time to spare.

“I need a recommendation,” he said politely to the human cashier, who was extraordinarily petite even for a human. She dimpled up at him, and there was a low sigh from the hirsa behind him in line, subsonic and wistful.

“Of course!” she said. “That’s my favorite part of the job, I love picking out drinks. You look like a muskeg man, but you’d know that already… oh, have you tried our bayou tea? It’s a sort of spicy Earth drink - well, first created on Earth, no tea grows there now, obviously.”

She _was_ cute. Not just for a human. Just... cute. Sezin wasn’t attracted, himself, but he could see the attraction, the appeal. He’d been infected. The porn had broken him.

“That does sound interesting. Thank you. I’ll take a cup of that as well. But what’s a good beverage for a human who needs to sleep? Not coffee. He doesn’t need coffee.”

“Ohhhhhh,” she said, and cocked her head at him thoughtfully. “Does he have a sweet tooth?”

Gavin had used that phrase about himself before, so Sezin was able to keep from staring at her rudely.

“Yes.”

“Alright, a bayou and a chocolate lavender, then,” she said, and winked at him. “Lavender’s good for sleep, and humans love chocolate, as a rule. Bit of a comfort food. Drinks up at the bar in five!”

“Good to know,” he said, pressing his chipped ID card to the proffered payment pad, and smiled at her. “Thank you.”

As he moved off he heard her greet the hirsa behind him, a Brightreef girl in electric pinks and oranges. “Back again already! Having a good morning, Zllila? Want your usual?”

“I - I could try the chocolate, actually,” the hirsa said, and Sezin silently wished her luck as he gathered up the drinks and went to greet his own human.

He caught Gavin at the door to his apartment. “Oh no,” Gavin said sadly, still struggling into his coat with one bandaged arm, wincing. His hair was defying gravity, fluffed up in odd waves. Bedhead, he’d heard humans say before, and deliberately did not think about it; a thought to save for later. Much later. “Look, Sezin, I’m fine. I can definitely go to work! Don’t make me stay home. It’s boring at home.”

“I brought you chocolate,” Sezin said severely, and muscled his way inside past his partner, putting the drink down on the kitchen table and turning to divest Gavin of his coat, whisking it off gently and incidentally smothering it in his own scent, like a terrible person. Whatever, it was already smothered in his scent anyway. Gavin gave up the coat after a moment and drooped, looked like an especially bedraggled fry, freshly hatched, all big eyes and hair draped like tendrils around his face.

“Drink your chocolate and go back to bed, you idiot.”

His partner gave him a pathetic look, which Sezin ignored, but then he perked a bit, shooting Sezin a smile. Which was harder to ignore by far.

“You brought me _chocolate_ ,” he said, picking the cup up in his non-bandaged hand and sniffing it. The smile widened. “I should get stabbed more often. Joking! Sorry, totally joking, I will absolutely get stabbed less.”

“That’s what I thought you said,” Sezin grumbled, and inspected the array of medication strewn on the kitchen table instead of watching Gavin’s face as he took a sip. But he still heard Gavin make a, a _sound_. Oh no, Sezin thought. Oh, shit.

“Thanks, Zin,” Gavin said, beaming at him over the top of the cup. “This really is perfect. Want to a stay for a bit before you go in? Keep me company? Oh, or you could bring the paperwork here! We could work from home!”

He smelled of bitter sweat and the antiseptic of the nanothatch bandage, steadily stitching him together bit by microscopic bit. It would hurt, be hurting him if he hadn’t taken the drugs to go with it - which he clearly hadn’t. Human hands were sensitive, he must be in pain.

“Finish the chocolate, take your drugs, and go to _sleep_ ,” Sezin growled, and felt helplessly fond when Gavin gave him an aggrieved look. “I thought you liked sleeping in in the morning.”

“Not like this,” Gavin said. “Ugh, ugh. Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow, though. And Sezin?” Sezin turned back and saw Gavin leaning against the door frame. His shirt was untucked and his feet were bare. “Thanks. I really appreciate this. You’re a good partner. A good friend.”

“You too,” Sezin said distantly, and fled the scene.

He was doomed.

***

Over several weeks of further observation, Sezin had concluded that Gavin was almost definitely not _not_ -interested in him.

Everything that would be broadcasting obvious interest by a hirsa was, on Gavin, much more ambiguous. Casually asking Sezin to borrow his coat. Stealing sips from Sezin’s tea to see if it was still as awful as he remembered (it always was), leaving the imprint of his lips on the cup. Flopping into Sezin’s chair when Sezin wasn’t using it, leaving Sezin impossibly immersed in his scent for days.

But based on the storylines of several human-aimed recreational documents, at least _some_ of the things Gavin did were behaviors that, between humans, broadcast intimacy and romantic interest.

Smiling specifically whenever Sezin entered a room, when he had not already been smiling, or even appeared to have previously been in a poor mood. Complimenting Sezin’s appearance. Touching him when he didn’t need to - humans were an extraordinarily tactile species, by hirsa standards, but there were ranges to what they considered appropriate between strangers, family, friends, and romantic partners. Gavin frequently blurred the line between the last two.

Last week, yawning over their backlog of end-of-year paperwork, he had thunked his head against Sezin’s shoulder while sleepily praying for the sweet embrace of death. His hair tickled against Sezin’s neck, soft and not fuzzy at all. Silky.

But not to get distracted, because, this seemed most significant of all, Sezin had also frequently caught Gavin staring at his mouth.

“Oh fuck, you are _totally in_ ,” Kurz said, cheering and sloshing his beer everywhere, like the barely graduated rookie he was.

“No, but he might not _know_ he’s doing it,” Sezin explained patiently, and confiscated his beer, since he clearly wasn’t responsible enough to drink it himself.

“Wait, wait, go back. You’ve been watching what now?” Zissa said, fascinated.

“Human recreational media programs with romantic themes,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Run out of porn?” she wanted to know, and laughed when he kicked her.

“Okay, this is getting pathetic,” Hrran said, slamming his palms down on the bar and making them all stiffen helms. “Sezin, I admit, I always wanted to see you in a state like this, the clan’s most perfect hirsa brought down to the sad level of other mortals, but this is just getting sad. If he doesn’t know, then just _tell_ him, cuz.”

That was almost definitely what Sezin should do, and he also definitely wasn’t going to do it any time soon. It didn’t feel right, not yet.

“You just need a good opening,” Hrran said, nudging him, and then laughed. “Hah, opening. Look, can we - set up a case, where you have to, like. Pretend to be marked to each other? For the job!”

“ _You’ve been watching the programs too_ ,” Sezin accused, and then sighed, rubbing at his forehead. “No, that would be terrible police work, those plotlines are deeply inaccurate.”

Still. Eventually, there would be an opening. He was impatient, sure, but deep down, he didn’t mind the wait.

***

The Thomas Weiher case was one of their more grueling ones - the viciousness of the deaths combined with the sordidness of it, the implications of the missing flesh, that made Sezin feel a constant low-key nausea that got worse if thought about it too much. A hirsa’s teeth, ripping chunks out of a human who wore their scent. It was almost as bad as anything he could think of, and unlike the missing children case, which had been a special kind of awful, there was no chance this one would ever have a happy ending. 

So Sezin was already on edge, and weak to the suggestion of something safe, and kind, even before his relationship with Gavin started slowly shifting. Sezin didn’t actually know, exactly, how or why things had started to pick up pace between them - but even before the case began, Gavin had started teasing him with a little more of a question in his eyes than he’d had before. He made comments about whipped cream, and cat fights, and humans having oral fixations, and smiled slow and curling when Sezin spluttered at him, squirming.

But it still didn’t feel quite right to say anything about it, not when Gavin was so clearly mulling things over, like he was testing the air between them gently. If Sezin’s adrenaline hadn’t been so high, and stomach so sick from the case, he thought’d he’d have enjoyed it more - the slow build of this thing between them, tantalizing and nerve-wracking.

In sorting out the details of the murder, it became clear Gavin apparently still had no real idea of the existence of dorsal or ventral tentacles - which meant he hadn’t gotten to the point of doing any extracurricular research on human-hirsa erotic media himself. Sezin couldn’t decide if he should be kind of offended - because why not, _why_ hadn’t it occurred to him? But he found himself coming down harder on the side of pleased, because then - then he could show Gavin everything himself. Be the only hirsa Gavin ever saw beneath the helms.

Not that he was making assumptions, but Sezin _definitely_ saw Gavin shoot a look at his back, and then drop his eyes downwards whenever they started talking about marks.

‘You just need an opening,’ he heard Hrran saying, obnoxiously suggestive even in his mind. But when Gavin asked how someone could get a secondary marking from a hirsa, in public, without knowing it - there didn’t seem any reason not to take it.

They were in the car, outside the station. Gavin was staring, his eyes getting brighter and brighter, smile curling up at one corner, and then he took Sezin’s hand. His palm was soft and dry, and warm, and his thumb wrapped easily around Sezin’s wrist. He watched as Sezin let a tentacle unfurl beneath his shirt, eyes big and the scent of him thick in the space between them. Slowly, giving Gavin time to pull back, he let the tentacle lick out until it touched, lighter than breath, against Gavin’s pulse.

The blood was beating there - he could feel the jagged edge of a scar, where the knife had been, and stroked it, feeling faint. Gavin’s scent had started shifting already, the hormones sinking in. He smelled like - like home. He hadn’t known human skin could be so soft - it felt softer against Sezin’s dorsal tip than it did against his scales; he hadn’t realized that humans were that soft and sensitive _everywhere_. 

“Oh,” Gavin breathed out, staring at him. His mouth was very red, and slightly open, and the scent of the two of them, mingled and melded, filling the car, made Sezin feel drunker than any alcohol. “Yes, uh. I wouldn’t have noticed that either, if I wasn’t paying attention,” his voice was a little hoarse, and it was wreaking havoc on Sezin’s other tentacles. “Though it’s hard to imagine getting so close to any hirsa _without_ paying attention, you know?”

Such a clever, competent, curious human. _Fuck, I want you_ , he thought, trying to hide the trembling in all of his limbs. And also to convince his dorsal arm to let go, now that the demo was done. Not actually for you, he scolded the recalcitrant limb.

But - he didn’t actually have to, at all, because Gavin pressed back against him before he could pull the tentacle away, rolling his wrist into it and removing any chance of Sezin not doing extremely pathetic, inappropriate things about this memory later tonight.

But it wasn’t really like Gavin knew, was it? He knew, but not - intimately. And besides, even if he did, this wasn’t anything more than, than a declaration of interest in casual fucking.

Still. Gavin did wear Sezin’s scent afterwards without any hint of embarrassment or regret - just strolled nonchalantly into the station, looking pleased with himself. After all the congratulations from their co-workers, the HR complaints to their bosses, and the _frankly inappropriate_ tacklehug from Sezin’s cousin - if he hadn’t understood what he’d signed up for beforehand, Gavin was clearly more than aware of what he was offering Sezin by now, and it was hard not to hope.

And sure, it wasn’t a primary mark - they were still only secondary, which was fine. Secondary marking was more than fine - humans and even some hirsa started relationships casually before letting them deepen, or dissolve entirely. It wasn’t what Sezin had ever wanted, before, but compromise was what their department was all about after all. He startled himself by being entirely, happily, willing to wait, as long as it took. 

And then, somehow, not even day later, they _did_ have to go moderately undercover, at a sex club, as partners, and Sezin knew somewhere that both Sesira and Hrran were laughing.

They weren’t technically undercover as a couple there, but there was definitely an assumption everyone there was making when the two of them walked in, smelling so strongly of each other, with Gavin so clearly a member of the Scald. Then there was how he absently used his own body to ward Sezin off from unintended touches by the patrons and passerby, like he always did. Thoughtful, not possessive, but still. They gave the impression a couple on the verge of taking the next step, and it certainly made their interviews at the club a little easier

And if Sezin hoped the impression was an accurate one, he had the feeling he wasn’t the only one.

He knew for sure he was in love - this was it, for him, absolutely - when he felt the absolute worst. That pervert at the club, who he absolutely was going to find a way to arrest, had touched his partner, leached his Deepmaw scent into Gavin’s blood cloying and sickly sweet. It was nauseating in a way that ached, that made his gills close. But even though he felt sick with it, he still - he would rather smell his own scent overlain, have his own scent neutralized entirely, than not smell Gavin at all.

Whatever Gavin wanted to give him was all he wanted. 

He hunched on his side of the car, hands on the steering wheel, waiting for it to end. The neutralizer took effect quickly - a hiss of spray, and then Gavin smelled of nothing but himself. No Deepmaw. No Scald. No Sezin. 

He breathed carefully, eyes closed, and barely understood what was happening, at first, when Gavin’s hand grabbed his chin. His eyes flew open, and then he couldn’t think how to breathe for a moment, his gills rattling and shaking before he remembered how to use lungs. 

Kissing a human was, it turned out, not nearly as awkward as it looked. Gavin’s neck arched beautifully, and his flat teeth were surprisingly, pleasingly sharp, and his tongue - well. It was - stronger than Sezin’s tongues. As it turned out, that was not unappealing, either, especially once Gavin teased his tongue-tips apart. Sezin took the hint and stopped using that human configuration, untwined the tips. Then shuddered all over at the low interested sound Gavin made into his mouth when Sezin let his tongues lick into him the way his tentacles wanted to do. He’d never kissed like this before, hot and strangled, almost stuttering, with Gavin pulling back to breathe every few minutes. Each pause was like a tease that let Sezin stare at his partner’s flushed face. Strange, strange, and alien but so familiar. 

And, maybe - please, maybe - _his_. 

When Gavin dragged him out of the station’s carpark by the hand, he thought maybe they were both in the same current at last. 

***

It shouldn’t have surprised him that Gavin wouldn’t settle for anything secondary, not once he’d made up his mind. If he’d thought about it, he could have predicted that they’d end up slick and sticky and panting and mate-marked by the end of the night, but he hadn’t thought, not wanting to get his hopes up, and now he felt like he’d been hit with an electric prod.

“You get it though, right?” Sezin asked anyway afterwards, still shuddering in Gavin’s hold. The idea of having to let go, of Gavin smelling blank and chemically clean again, was too horrific now to leave his intentions ambiguous. Using words seemed important, even if he could barely make his tongues work, his whole body still shivering in curling aftershocks. “I mean it. You’re not getting rid of me, not ever - not unless you want.” That felt like a clear declaration, and it had almost been coherent. He rewarded himself by licking at Gavin’s mouth again, tasting the two of them mingled together, and thought he’d probably understated his devotion. 

He’d try again tomorrow.

“Mmmph,” Gavin murmured into his cheek in return. He was curled damply against Sezin’s heaving chest, sticky, his face and jaw still glimmering faintly, gloriously, with ventral slick. And his facial hair and his body hair _were_ in fact scratchy with sweat and other bodily fluids, and as it turned out, that wasn’t irritating. It was wonderful, visceral and impossible to ignore. “Yeah, Zin, I know. I mean, I get the important parts, at least. You and me. You’ve been saying it all for months, right? Sorry for making you wait. Everyone must think I’m a terrible detective, huh? You weren’t subtle.”

“Not especially,” Sezin agreed, unable to summon any real regret about it, not when he was melting into his human like a jellyfish dumped onto land, dumb and boneless and quivering. “But believe me, they’re all judging me, not you.” 

Not that he cared, not now. He couldn’t stop smiling, and it only got worse when Gavin noticed and kissed the corner of his mouth, humming happily back.

Sezin couldn’t quite bring himself to retract his dorsal arms yet, and Gavin didn’t seem to mind, so he let them explore, lazily post-coital, sliding along a thigh and brushing through the hair at his temple. He sucked in a gasp when Gavin nuzzled absently into the curve of tentacle, and then felt a newly familiar, delighted dread at the interested look Gavin gave him. Gavin was entirely too intuitive; Sezin was going to die like this, one day, and it was going to be a glorious way to go.

“In my own defense, I just couldn’t imagine someone like you interested in me. I mean, in humans at all.”

“I am _extremely interested_ ,” Sezin said, and Gavin laughed.

“Believe me, I am now aware. And hey, Zin – feeling’s mutual.”

“Mm. I also am now aware, of that,” Sezin said, and kept his nose in his human’s hair, breathing him in. “Mine.”

And tomorrow morning, he had plans – he wanted to spend more time with Gavin’s scarred hands, with his mouth. He’d seen a lot of porn. He had _ideas_.

***

Ideas which were unfortunately postponed. Sezin didn’t tell Gavin how difficult it was to let his newly marked mate out of his arms, but he had a feeling his partner knew. They both knew the job was more important, Sezin was absolutely in agreement.

But it was _really hard_. And got worse, when Gavin not only left his side, but left his sight. And then _was attacked by a serial killer_ , in a room thick with scent of death. Death, everywhere – just. Fuck.

Dan, forcibly removed of his blood-stained hirsa-shaped false teeth, was restrained but still alive when he was placed into the waiting squad car. Sezin watched the process with no satisfaction; he knew at some point, he’d be pleased at the closing of their case, but at the moment all he could process was the man’s stench on his mate’s skin, and worse, the return of that thick clog of decay in the air as the body was rolled out by a somber forensic team.

That could have been Gavin - no. No, it couldn’t have, Sezin reminded himself, resettling his holster, and his comm, and his cuffs, and then his holster again, flexing his talons restlessly. It couldn’t have, because Gavin had been more than capable of defending himself, and indeed had defended himself, and was completely alive and warm next to him. He hadn’t needed Sezin at all, really.

So. Sezin was fucking civilized and he didn’t murder Dan, or throw his human mate to the ground and inspect every inch of bruised flesh, rub it with each tentacle until the stink of death and murder and _intruder_ was gone.

Because he was a professional. And because Dan was already gone. And because he was also pretty sure Gavin had the _gist_ of what he’d offered when he took Sezin’s mark, but not the details. They'd been sent off by the lieutenants to type up their case notes, so he wouldn’t be sure for hours yet, how much of him Gavin actually wanted. But before they could get in the car, Gavin looked over at him, gnawing at his lower lip the way he did when he was unsure about something.

He shouldn’t ever be unsure of Sezin.

But it turned out most of both of their respective uncertainties were unfounded – just that _shitty Deepmaw_ , playing mindgames again. As though any hirsa in the city could walk past Sezin and not know he’d been thoroughly claimed. Sure, the scent would be a little confusing, but it was also clearly the scent of a mated man.

And now he knew Gavin indubitably wanted Sezin to be marked, too, as his own. Fuck, _yes_.

“Mine,” Sezin said into Gavin’s mouth, tasting his saliva and his teeth, drinking in the warmth of his tongue. There was a hint of blood at the corner, where a punch from that fucking murderer had landed, and it made him a little wilder than he’d intended on becoming in public. He pushed Gavin up against the car door, growling helplessly in his chest. “Mine, mine, mine.”

“Absolutely, accurate, yes, yep, that’s me,” Gavin murmured back against his teeth, all smiles again, making it a little difficult to keep kissing him, but then, Sezin was pretty determined. From behind them he heard some congratulatory shouting, and then for some reason Gavin was pushing him away gently, eyes big and mouth wincing as he looked over Sezin’s shoulder.

At Lieutenant Rosser, apparently, who said, sounding somehow both amused and aggrieved at the same time, “Change of plans, gentlemen. How about you two write the case notes up on Monday? Consider it a congratulatory gift on your bond.”

“Translation: Hayes, get your mate out of the public eye before we have to arrest you both,” Chung said, sighing. “You can sign the car back in to the station on Monday, too. Just _go_.”

Sezin should be embarrassed, but -

“Can I take you home?” he asked hopefully, and everything was a bit of a blur after Gavin said yes. He spent the entire time focusing on keeping himself decently coiled. He was nearly in a daze by the time the elevator spit them out on his floor, Gavin snagging the keys from him.

“Oh, hey, should I break the lease on my apartment? I mean. Do we - live together here, now? We do, right?” Gavin asked, kicking off his shoes by Sezin’s door and stretching his arms over his head, wincing as it pulled on whatever that _unfortunately still breathing excuse for a sentient being_ had done to Gavin’s back.

And then it hit Sezin. It hadn’t occurred to him until now that Gavin could even think they _wouldn’t_ be living together. This, this was probably why verbal communication had been invented.

“I can get a dog, did you - if you want a dog,” Sezin offered desperately, only half-remembering their earlier conversation, and then bit his tongues, because he knew he sounded crazy to a human, he knew he did. But also he was newly marked and his mate had an enemy’s scent on them and was _wounded_ , and he felt extraordinarily primitive right now.

“But waiting to move in together is fine, obviously,” he managed to get out, impressively calmly in his opinion. Because he _had_ been aware what he was getting into with a human, with the potential for misunderstandings and cultural mismatches. And their partnership, their colony in general, had prepared him well, at least, for compromise. And this was more important than his stupid hindbrain. “I can wait. I don’t mind, I really don’t.”

“Hey, wait, no. No dogs necessary, babe, it’s fine! I mean, it’s fast for humans, but I knew I was all in last night, Sezin, and I know you are too. I know you,” Gavin said, reaching up to catch his chin, letting his soft, strong fingers fan out along the line of Sezin’s jaw. “I just didn’t think - I guess we should at least start out living here, right? I only have a shower at mine. I don’t want you stuck without a grotto.”

“Whatever you want,” Sezin said, melting in relief and leaning into the touch, feeling his gills flush and a couple ventral tentacles drip just at that simple of a gesture, just the curve of Gavin’s palm against his cheek. He was so, so fucked. They hadn’t had sex in at least eight hours, and it was intolerable. Not being skin-close to Gavin was intolerable.

“I mean, my apartment’s closer to work, but I’m pretty excited to see you in the pool, honestly. I’ve never seen you in water,” Gavin said, doing that thing again, where he spread a bloom of color through his cheeks, his lips flushing. Sezin was already developing an instinctive uncoiling response to the color pink, which might wind up problematic at some point. “And you’ll be happier with a proper grotto, right?”

“Sure,” Sezin agreed, nuzzling beneath Gavin’s jaw, where the skin was hot and untainted by any foreign scent - just sweat, and Sezin. “Wait,” he realized, pulling away to look at Gavin’s face worriedly. “It’s half the floorspace. The grotto. Half the apartment space seems like a lot.” That sounded articulate, right?

“Well, we could look for a closer, maybe bigger place later, if. Uh. We want kids? Wow, this is like god tier level human relationship conversation, sorry.”

Kids. Gavin wanted - with him. “I’m trying not to ravish you,” Sezin said sternly, and bit down on that one of those curved bone that jutted sleekly from Gavin’s chest, like a frame. “Could you - stop. Being perfect.”

“Well, I’m sort of invested in being ravished. Let’s, uh. Let’s sort housing later,” Gavin said in a shuddery voice, and somehow he was back up against a wall and one of his _legs_ was up, pulling Sezin in by the waist. He was staring at Sezin, flatteringly pink-cheeked and dark-eyed. And that would have been the end of Sezin’s conscious thoughts for a good while, except then Gavin suddenly hissed, squirming against Sezin’s grip on his lower back, and Sezin abruptly remembered Dan and danger and the scent of death all over again - was frankly appalled he’d somehow forgotten it.

“Take off your shirt and let me see,” he said, pulling away and glaring.

“This seems less sexy,” Gavin said, but seemed resigned nonetheless, standing on his own two legs again, even if he didn’t let go of the back of Sezin’s neck. “It’s really not a big deal, Zin. I hit a shelf at some point earlier, during - anyway, it’s probably bruised. Humans bruise.”

“Humans,” Sezin said, narrowing his eyes, “have their kidneys moderately exposed in their lower backs. Take off your shirt and let me see.”

“Oh my god, you’re really cute.” Which Sezin was not at all sure he appreciated but somehow still really enjoyed hearing. Being in love was ridiculous. “And also, I want you to remember all of this the next time you get all grumpy over me yelling at _you_ for getting hurt at work.”

“‘s different,” Sezin insisted shiftily, and distracted Gavin by getting his shirt untucked and sliding his hands up under cloth and onto skin at last. Which was, in turn, slightly a bit distracting in and of itself, because he hadn’t really had time to appreciate the human male torso before.

“Nipples,” he observed intently under his breath, interested, squeezing one gently between two talons. They’d been too rushed last time for Sezin to really get to explore.

“How do you know about nipples?” Gavin asked, voice squeaky in a new and intriguing way.

“I can’t tell if you like this or not. Humans in porn seem to, but you - ” Sezin said, frowning, and tried again. Gavin rocked his hips against Sezin’s ventral helm, but he was also laughing, so the signals were decidedly mixed.

“Wait, wait,” Gavin laughed hoarsely. “I want to hear more about the porn, oh my god. Hrran said something about an email chain earlier today… Can you add me?”

“Absolutely not,” Sezin grumbled, shoving his face beneath Gavin’s ear, right where the hair had gone slightly damp with sweat. He had a hard time believing he’d once thought human hair disgusting. He licked at the dampness with unfolded tongues and felt a reciprocal shudder run through him when Gavin shivered.

“What if I convinced you,” Gavin said, a smile audible in his voice.

“Nngh,” Sezin said, tendrils seizing. “I mean. You can’t. Just forget it about it. And take off your shirt, or I’ll take it off for you.”

“Uh, that’s - sure. You do it,” And human pheromones were incredibly faint in comparison to a hirsa’s, obviously, like a puff of current from far away, the dream of a scent. But Sezin could taste it, subtle and spicy, thickening in the air right at Gavin’s throat when Sezin pulled and buttons popped.

“You like that,” Sezin smirked.

“Stupid hirsa strength,” Gavin hissed dreamily, hips a sweet steady roll of waves against Sezin’s ventral helm. “You don’t even work out. Take off your own shirt, I’m not embarrassing myself by trying that move.”

Sezin tsked disappointedly, ducking his head to lick a nipple, and then startled then both by moaning when Gavin nipped at one of his cephalic helms in return.

“Oh ho ho!” Gavin said, grinning all over his idiotic, beautiful face, and Sezin took the opportunity to hide his own face via pulling his shirt off over his head and kicking off his pants, then striding briskly away to the grotto to start the pool going.

Gavin followed – Sezin could see him in the reflection of the water’s surface, his hips swaying, grin still shit-eating. Fuck.

“Feeling real good about my life and my choices right now,” Gavin said behind him. When Sezin glanced over his shoulder, he’d settled back against the sink and was staring at Sezin’s naked form. “ _Real good_.”

“Would you like to feel better?” Sezin inquired, testing the water with a talon. Still only barely warm to him, which probably meant too cold for Gavin. Mammals without subcutaneous fat or actual fur, he’d read, could become hypothermic in water remarkably quickly, except in the tropics.

“It doesn’t have to be hot, babe,” Gavin said, and dove in, having apparently divested himself of the rest of his clothes while Sezin wasn’t looking.

“’Babe,’” Sezin repeated uncertainly to himself while Gavin was still under the surface of the water, testing it out. Jury undecided. Gavin’s head popped back up, seal-slick and eyes bright. “I don’t want you to be cold. Babe.”

“Then come warm me up,” Gavin suggested, hair over his eyes waggling like helms.

“You do know my clan is one of the hydrothermal vents,” Sezin said, exasperated. “Just because I prefer cooler water on average doesn’t mean I don’t like it hot on occasion. Just – let me – what do _you_ like? My range is broader than yours. I don’t. I don’t know what’s good for you. Is this warm enough or not?”

Gavin was quiet for a moment, then said, “Hotter wouldn’t be bad. But I promise I’ll let you know, okay? If I’m uncomfortable. But you too - you have to let me know, too, on the other side. Promise?”

Sezin started to protest, then realized that was probably the point – it would be easy, to let things slide in order not to inconvenience his partner.

“Yes,” he said, and was rewarded by Gavin’s eyes crinkling up, pleased. “Hotter is fine with me, too.” He turned it up, slightly, and set the water to recycle. He was looking forward to scrubbing the foreign scents off Gavin’s body with his own.

“Awesome. Now get in and let me see you,” Gavin said, swimming back up to the edge of the pool, sounding startlingly impatient. “You get to see me on land all the time, I want to see you in the water.”

“I don’t get to see you in the jungle where the apes lived, do I?” Sezin said, rolling his eyes, and stuck his tongues out when Gavin splashed him. But it wasn’t like this was a hardship. It wasn’t like he didn’t like Gavin’s eyes, hungry on him as he slid into the water, down to the bottom of the pool, and expelled the remaining air in his lungs, bubbles drifting up like glass globes to break on the surface.

Gavin did look different here, from below, backlit by light. Sezin wondered how it felt to be treading water instead of sliding through it. Wondered if this was part of figuring each other out – the alienness of each other.

Then he saw the patch of darkness on Gavin’s lower back as he flipped over to float that way, apparently tired of treading, and Sezin forgot to muse on more metaphysical things and just shot upwards to grab his mate with careful arms.

“FUCK,” Gavin gasped, “there you are, ah, hello. Wow.” Sezin was staying under for now, just nuzzling against his back. Gavin’s voice as it filtered down through the water was slightly echoing. “You look beautiful like this, you know? Fuck, you’re beautiful. Sorry you’re dating a damp monkey. Ow!”

Sezin soothed the bite on Gavin’s ass with his tongues, pleased at the resulting noises and the slow spread through the entire pool of the scent of human pre-ejaculate, and went back to nuzzling at the warmth of the bruise on Gavin’s lower back worriedly.

“My kidneys are _fine_ ,” Gavin said, strangled, and then ducked beneath the surface of the water and twisted in Sezin’s grip, surprisingly slippery despite his lightly furred skin, and dragged Sezin’s mouth for a kiss. It lasted, and lasted, and lasted, until at last Gavin kicked slightly upwards and Sezin could hear him gasping.

“Fuck, well. Fuck, _Sezin_ ,” he said, garbled a little now, slightly choking, but it didn’t last long so Sezin figured it was fine, and focused on nibbling at a nipple while his ventral arms tasted Gavin’s penis at last. “Should we - You, ah – oh god, I—I mean I know you won’t let me drown, I’m gonna… fuck, fuck, Zin. Zin, please, please.”

Gavin finally came, thrashing like a caught fish and the whole pool smelled of slick and semen – it was all Sezin could smell, now. His, his, his. Sezin smugly started nudging Gavin towards the edge of the pool. If they got a new apartment, they should get one with a shallower grotto, with rocks, for his human to lounge on while Sezin devoured him. He liked Gavin like this, letting Sezin support him trustingly, but it’d be good to have _options_.

“Nnngh,” Gavin said dazedly, and then wrapped all of his limbs around Sezin’s body, legs and arms startlingly limber. “Wait, uh. Can you fuck me out here? No dorsals yet, but ventrals are good – you’re so fucking wet there still, right? Slick? So just go for it. Whatever you want. Please.”

Sesira, whatever. Whatever? Sezin’s brain felt empty as an open ocean, thoughts flashing around disconnected. While he wasn’t paying attention he’d plastered himself against Gavin’s back, curled around him from beneath, shuddering. His ventrals were almost impossible to control, gone wild and slithering over testicles, in and around Gavin’s rim, but he managed at least to get his dorsals under control and wrapped six of the eight around Gavin’s torso, two around his dick.

“I can hold you up,” he shuddered, nipping at Gavin’s ear, his neck. “I won’t let you sink, I – I promise. I have you.”

“Jesus, please,” Gavin said, sounding wild, and Sezin wanted so badly to see his face, but – maybe, soon. Next time. Maybe they could get an apartment with mirrored ceilings.

Right now this was good, this was fine – this was Gavin swearing and his voice echoing unashamedly off the walls as Sezin buried his face against his neck, _everything_ writhing. He came dorsally and ventrally at the same time, and Gavin came a second time, which was hot enough, but then Sezin came again – he hadn’t even thought ventrals _could_ come like that, twice. And it was just – impossibly good. A lot. He felt a lot. He managed to tow Gavin over to the side of the pool, with Gavin laughing at him most of the way as he kicked alongside him, and then floated there blissfully with his face buried in Gavin’s thigh as Gavin sat on the edge petting his helms and catching his breath.

“Darling. Darling. Light of my life,” Gavin’s voice sunk in eventually. “I actually can’t sleep here. Mammalian metabolism and all.”

“Hnngh. Yes. Okay,” Sezin said, and with supreme effort managed to get out of the pool. “Darling’s okay,” he decided, collapsing face-down onto the bed. Darling was better than babe, at least. Compromise. Like now. The bed wasn’t better than the pool, but Sezin did still like it. It was soft, in a different way than the water. He liked it even better when Gavin curled around him and kissed his shoulder. “Stay forever, please,” he requested drowsily, and coiled their legs together.

“That’s the plan,” Gavin said, and kissed him to sleep.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [confirmation bias by novembersmith [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14373126) by [Rhea314 (Rhea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Rhea314)




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